my friend billy called me a couple of weeks ago. he left a message that said he was deleting some people from his phonebook and also calling some that he had lost touch with and wanted to catch up, i was one of the lucky ones.
billy is a musician from texas and i met him one night at chili's about five years ago. when i met him, i was with a huge group of friends and when he walked in, he had a presence. he was somebody. he had long blond hair and walked with a stride and when he politely introduced himself with a southern texas drawl, he said, "hi, i'm billy. billy dawson."
i thought there was no way this guy could have anything to say that i wanted to hear or that i would be the least bit interested. i was wrong. i judged him. he handled the table like we were all old friends and the best part was he was genuine.
as the weeks turned into years and i got to know billy. he became one of my favorite people. ever. and although i never talked to him that much or got to know him that well. i think of him often; mostly i think of his heart.
monday nights after i moved to nashville, my roommates and i soon started having parties at our house, appropriately on...you guessed it...monday nights. monday nights started with a hand full of people and by the time two years had run it's course we had seen hundreds of people in and out of our house on a monday. there wasn't anything we did or didn't do. it was just a place for people to hang out, talk and just be themselves. sometimes we would find ourselves inthralled in the latest bachelor drama; sometime we would just talk. billy occasionally came when his schedule permitted,
so did *randy.
randy smelled funny and was morbidly obese and socially awkward. he was in and out of jobs and really not a pleasure to be around. when he talked he mumbled. he was not stable. but through the grape vine he heard about monday nights and decided to make them his own. he never missed a week. and it was an open door policy and i was more than happy to have him.
except i was not. i tolerated him. i rolled my eyes behind his back. i smiled to his face. and acted like i was his friends. i was not.
billy was though.
whenever billy was there, i would notice him reaching out to him and finding something to talk with him about.
something. having a real conversation with, not surface level stuff, real talk. billy would talk to him all night. billy cared about randy, you could tell. one night, i happened to catch some of their conversation. they were talking about star wars. and billy was fueling him, asking him questions beside the 'yes' and 'no' questions. and randy was really really talking to him. like really talking to him and what he had to say was interesting, really interesting. and they kept talking and kept talking.
never will i forget thinking when that night was over that billy might have saved randy's life that night. billy might have made him feel like a somebody for once in his life. a social outcast by the worlds standards, billy engaged him and was really interested. he was real with him. and made him feel like he belonged. and i was touched by the rawness and the realness of billy's heart. i was cordial to randy, i was kind to him, but i was not real. billy was real.
i could learn a thing or two from billy.
whatever you do for the least of these, you do to me. matthew 25:41
1 comment:
thanks for this, this touched my heart! love you sista!
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